If you're a Netflix fan looking to hook up with a top notch documentary, I strongly urge you to give the 7 Up series a close look. Up front, we'll concede that it won't be everyone's cup of tea. However, failing to at least check it out may be depriving yourself of a truly remarkable documentary experience.
This series is simultaneously a work of entertainment and sociological research. It wasn't included on our list of the top 5 of the best documentaries on Netflix only because it really is in a different category.
It's the difference between a great gangster film, like The Godfather or Goodfellas, and a great long arch TV gangster series, like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. It's a totally different kind of experience. The latter is slower, much more nuanced, and requires patience to allow it to unfold.
The 7 Up series began in 1964, when British TV producers brought together 14 children from what they perceived at the time as a representative sampling of British society. Their diversity was in their gender, race and economic condition.
There was an overt premise underlying this 1964 program: the expectation was that the show was providing a glimpse of Britain in the year 2000. The less obvious but equally vital assumption was that these kids' backgrounds would direct the course of their lives into the future. The conclusion of the 1964 installment promised to drop in on these 14 sometime in the 21st century, to see how things had turned out.
However, there was a young researcher on that original installment who was to go on to have an extremely successful career as a film director, working on a range of material stretching from the Gorillas in the Mist to 007. Michael Apted had a different idea about the potential of that project begun in 1964. Instead of waiting for the 21st century, he took his cameras back to catch up with the kids seven years later, when they where 14. And he's gone back every seven years ever since. The result has been one of the most extraordinary cinematic documents of all time.
As I write this, in the U.S., January 2013 ushered in the latest installment. The 7 year olds of 1964 are now 56. Perhaps you can imagine how strange this continually moving target of a story is. If you can stick with it, it provides an experience which is truly unique.
Whether it is compelling television is of course a matter of opinion. Some viewers complain either that nothing happens or that it's all simply too mundane. These people are no more interesting than me and my friends. Why would we want to watch a TV show about ourselves when we can just be ourselves and see it live, as it were?
For those who get it, though, that's kind of the point. The series turns the mundane into the special simply by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism, humor and tragedy of all our small lives are revealed through the experience of these 14 people, growing into adulthood.
This is in a sense the original reality TV show. Except, unlike the circuses that go by that name, today, this reality, really does touch something profoundly, movingly and at times heartbreakingly real. When you watch the entire series, it is difficult not to develop a sense of personal relationship with the characters: to have favorites that you cheer for.
At the heart of the whole enterprise, though, is a bit of a paradox, which I'm never quite clear about how aware of it the documentarians are. The notion that it captures real lives; the original assumption that socio-economic origins would be charted through the years as determining life choices, this whole founding fabric seems peculiarly blind to the impact of the observer principle.
The observer principle is often, and I might add mistakenly, attributed to the physicist Heisenberg. There's no need though of a confused idea about sub-atomic physics to recognize that knowing their being watched will have an effect on how people act.
Though it's less trendy as a pop reference, the appropriate comparison is to the Hawthorne experiments. These were a series of studies conducted by sociologists at a Western Electric plant in the 1920-30s. The point was to observe the behavior of the workers in the plant. It eventually became clear, though, that the very experience of being studied actually changed the behavior of the workers.
Being observed, and more importantly, awareness of being observed, changed the actions of the observed and so the results of the observation. It is of course impossible to know how the lives of these 14 people might have been different if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. It hardly seems far fetched, though, to imagine that some choices might have been different.
Pondering that conundrum may well be the most intriguing thought to reflect upon while watching those 14 youngsters making their way through life in this remarkable documentary.
This series is simultaneously a work of entertainment and sociological research. It wasn't included on our list of the top 5 of the best documentaries on Netflix only because it really is in a different category.
It's the difference between a great gangster film, like The Godfather or Goodfellas, and a great long arch TV gangster series, like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. It's a totally different kind of experience. The latter is slower, much more nuanced, and requires patience to allow it to unfold.
The 7 Up series began in 1964, when British TV producers brought together 14 children from what they perceived at the time as a representative sampling of British society. Their diversity was in their gender, race and economic condition.
There was an overt premise underlying this 1964 program: the expectation was that the show was providing a glimpse of Britain in the year 2000. The less obvious but equally vital assumption was that these kids' backgrounds would direct the course of their lives into the future. The conclusion of the 1964 installment promised to drop in on these 14 sometime in the 21st century, to see how things had turned out.
However, there was a young researcher on that original installment who was to go on to have an extremely successful career as a film director, working on a range of material stretching from the Gorillas in the Mist to 007. Michael Apted had a different idea about the potential of that project begun in 1964. Instead of waiting for the 21st century, he took his cameras back to catch up with the kids seven years later, when they where 14. And he's gone back every seven years ever since. The result has been one of the most extraordinary cinematic documents of all time.
As I write this, in the U.S., January 2013 ushered in the latest installment. The 7 year olds of 1964 are now 56. Perhaps you can imagine how strange this continually moving target of a story is. If you can stick with it, it provides an experience which is truly unique.
Whether it is compelling television is of course a matter of opinion. Some viewers complain either that nothing happens or that it's all simply too mundane. These people are no more interesting than me and my friends. Why would we want to watch a TV show about ourselves when we can just be ourselves and see it live, as it were?
For those who get it, though, that's kind of the point. The series turns the mundane into the special simply by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism, humor and tragedy of all our small lives are revealed through the experience of these 14 people, growing into adulthood.
This is in a sense the original reality TV show. Except, unlike the circuses that go by that name, today, this reality, really does touch something profoundly, movingly and at times heartbreakingly real. When you watch the entire series, it is difficult not to develop a sense of personal relationship with the characters: to have favorites that you cheer for.
At the heart of the whole enterprise, though, is a bit of a paradox, which I'm never quite clear about how aware of it the documentarians are. The notion that it captures real lives; the original assumption that socio-economic origins would be charted through the years as determining life choices, this whole founding fabric seems peculiarly blind to the impact of the observer principle.
The observer principle is often, and I might add mistakenly, attributed to the physicist Heisenberg. There's no need though of a confused idea about sub-atomic physics to recognize that knowing their being watched will have an effect on how people act.
Though it's less trendy as a pop reference, the appropriate comparison is to the Hawthorne experiments. These were a series of studies conducted by sociologists at a Western Electric plant in the 1920-30s. The point was to observe the behavior of the workers in the plant. It eventually became clear, though, that the very experience of being studied actually changed the behavior of the workers.
Being observed, and more importantly, awareness of being observed, changed the actions of the observed and so the results of the observation. It is of course impossible to know how the lives of these 14 people might have been different if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. It hardly seems far fetched, though, to imagine that some choices might have been different.
Pondering that conundrum may well be the most intriguing thought to reflect upon while watching those 14 youngsters making their way through life in this remarkable documentary.
About the Author:
If you're an enthusiastic documentary fan, you'll want to follow Mickey Jhonny's work at the Best Documentaries on Netflix site. Also, for a good time, give a read to his Top 5 List for all time Best Zombie Movies .
No comments:
Post a Comment